Cider Brook

The man again. Samantha sat up, her eyes and throat burning, aching. She tasted smoke and grime and felt her heart thumping in her chest. She blinked rapidly, peering up at the man standing between her and the mill. He was tall, looming over her. She made out dark short-cropped hair, deep blue eyes, a firm mouth, a square jaw, broad shoulders. He wore a black canvas shirt over a black T-shirt, jeans, scuffed leather boots.

Hauling her out of the mill had obviously not taxed him to any degree, but he didn’t seem happy about it. She had no idea who he was. A hiker? A local man? Did he own the cider mill? She hadn’t considered she might have to contend with an owner, or that it might be a tough, humorless man not much older than she was.

“I’m sorry,” she said, clearing her throat. “What did you ask me?”

He sucked in a quick breath. “Do you have asthma, allergies, a heart condition, anything—”

“No. Nothing. No medical issues.” Her voice was raspy, tense. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

He showed no sign of lowering his guard. “Fire department’s on the way. I have to get to work. You sit tight.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Stay out of the way.”

He hadn’t hesitated even half a beat before firing off his answer. He didn’t wait for a response and set off toward the mill. Thick smoke billowed from the open door into the cool, clear air. Flames glowed orange behind the dirty plastic and cracked glass in the windows.

Samantha watched as her rescuer stopped at a dusty-gray pickup truck, parked with its hood facing out the pitted dirt driveway. In seconds, he had donned fire gear—hat, mask, jacket.

A firefighter?

He grabbed an ax and headed for the mill.

The fire seemed to have sucked the door shut. He kicked it open and went inside.

Whoever he was, her rescuer was strong and utterly fearless.

She shivered in the cooler air. She hadn’t called him Captain Farraday, had she? Not out loud. It just wasn’t possible.

She heard sirens and realized a road was closer than she’d thought. In another thirty seconds, fire trucks and a lone police car descended. Samantha moved to a small boulder by the brook. With the downpour from the storm, the water was high, rushing over rocks, moss and mud.

As she watched firefighters set to work, she could feel the padlock in her jacket pocket.

If no one asked about it, she saw no reason to mention it.

Three

Her rescuer’s name was Justin Sloan.

Or so he told Samantha right before he demanded she produce his padlock.

He put out a callused hand. “Where is it?”

The fire was out, the mill intact if damaged. The firefighters had loaded up their gear and left, and the two uniformed police officers had followed them along the rutted driveway to the road. One of the officers had interviewed her. She’d told him the truth about how she’d ended up in the cider mill—that she’d ducked inside to get out of the thunderstorm. He’d asked if she’d noticed the Do Not Enter and Danger signs. She’d said she had. He’d scowled and hadn’t requested further details.

He was a Sloan, too. Eric Sloan.

One of the firefighters was also a Sloan. Christopher.

Small towns, she thought.

Justin, she now realized, was a volunteer firefighter. After helping put out the fire, he’d returned his gear to his truck and then joined her by her boulder. Samantha had dipped a hand into the cold brook water and done what she could to wipe the soot off her face, but she doubted she’d gotten it all. The acrid fire smells wouldn’t be easy to eliminate from her skin or her clothes. She had travel wipes and fresh clothes in her backpack, assuming it had survived the fire and wasn’t too contaminated by smoke.

Telling Justin Sloan that his missing padlock was in her jacket pocket didn’t seem like a particularly wise course of action at the moment. Although he gave no indication, he had to be in high-adrenaline mode after coming upon the old mill in flames, discovering a woman was more or less trapped inside, carrying her to safety and then helping to put out the fire.

Samantha realized she was in high-adrenaline mode herself. She stood, the seat of her pants wet, and flicked an ant off her knee. Casual. As if she hadn’t picked the padlock to get into the mill and didn’t have it in her jacket.

The banter she’d overheard between the firefighters had confirmed her suspicion that her rescuer owned the old cider mill.

“Hell, Justin, this place is even more of a dump than I thought.”

“I can’t believe you spent real money on it.”

“Firetrap, Justin. Told you.”

That last had come from Christopher Sloan. Apparently he was one of two full-time firefighters in Knights Bridge. Everyone else was a volunteer.

“They’re your brothers?” Samantha asked. “Eric and Christopher?”

“My brothers. Yes.” Justin snapped two fingers of his outstretched hand. “My padlock.”

Not a man easily distracted. She tried to look as if she didn’t quite understand him. “Padlock?”

“The one you picked or broke to get into the mill.”

He lowered his hand to his side, but she could tell from his set jaw that he wasn’t giving up. She didn’t feel guilty at what she’d done, but she didn’t want to explain herself to a man who’d just carted her out of a burning building and had helped put out the fire. He didn’t look as if he’d be a willing listener on a good day. Since one of his brothers was a police officer and another was a professional firefighter—and he himself was a volunteer firefighter—she wasn’t afraid of him. He wasn’t a thug. He was just not in a great mood.

“It was a dangerous storm. Downright scary, and I’ve been in some scary storms.” She decided to change the subject. “My name’s Samantha, by the way.”

His deep blue eyes narrowed on her. “What’s your last name, Samantha?”

“Bennett,” she said, sounding more tight-lipped and reluctant than she would have liked. She hadn’t volunteered her last name on purpose. She’d told Eric Sloan, the police-officer brother, but he’d asked, leaving her no choice. She doubted the Bennett name meant anything to him, Justin or the other firefighters who’d rushed to the old cider mill, but she’d intended to get in and out of Knights Bridge without the knowledge of any of its residents.

“Are you a Sam or a Samantha?”

“Either works.”

“Mostly Sam?”

“Mostly Samantha, actually.”

“Well, Samantha, you’re damn lucky you got out of there in time.”

“No argument from me. I noticed the smoke about fifteen minutes after the storm ended. Lightning caused the fire?”

He gave a curt nod. “Looks as if it struck the roof and traveled down the side wall to the cellar. The fire started there and worked its way up the wall. We’ve had a string of severe storms this past month.” He looked at her as if she might have caused the recent bad luck with the weather. “A microburst hit the center of town a few weeks ago. It uprooted a bunch of trees and damaged some homes and businesses. No serious injuries.”

“That’s good. About the injuries, I mean.”